


Predestination

by zade



Category: Hemlock Grove
Genre: Canon Lesbian Character, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Prostitution, Psychic Abilities, Religion, canon lesbian sex, racial/ethnic slur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2013-10-16
Packaged: 2017-12-29 13:54:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zade/pseuds/zade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Destiny can see where Clementine will end up.  No matter what she does, there is only this one outcome.</p>
<p>Character study.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Predestination

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for: lesbian sex, misuse of Christian theology, racial/ethnic slurs and stereotypes, canon character death.
> 
> Spoilers for the whole season.
> 
> Beta'd many moons ago by the amazing and ridiculous Andy

Destiny is not what anyone would call a fool. Peter might tease her for the line of work that she ended up in, but despite his jabs, she does not read palms or lead people towards ecstasy on accident or out of obligation to her Roma roots.

Destiny likes sex. She likes reading palms, reading face, reading cards. She likes learning people from the secrets they keep on their skin like little notes: “touch my side and I will squirm,” “stroke my thighs and I will moan,” “here is where I keep my love line,” “here is the length of my life,” “here is the length of my breaths.”

She'd be lying if she said she didn’t like the money, too.

She likes Clementine at first glance. Clementine is petite, but there is strength in those limbs. Nicolae told Destiny, when she was no more than ten, to beware of young, beautiful women seeking God. The second she sees Clementine she knows that he meant her, and a couple seconds after that she knows she is not going to take his advice.

The family was always torn on whether or not Nicolae was psychic, anyway.

Clementine kisses like Destiny is the Virgin Mary and Clementine is asking absolution from her lips. She wears a pendant with Saint Jude around her slim neck. Destiny thinks Clementine might be the poster child for lost causes.

Clementine yields beneath her hands. Destiny molds people, and Clementine is willing to be molded, dark skin breaking out in perspiration from the moment Destiny touches her with two wet fingers. 

Destiny's business isn't all blood capsules, smoke, and mirrors, but she would be lying if she didn't acknowledge that most of her rent comes from telling people what they expected to hear. Any real magic she inherited from Nicolae is reserved almost exclusively for her family or herself.

If she shows Clementine just a glimmer of the future, just a taste of real magic, well, it's Destiny's life to live or fuck up, and her magic to share or not to. Destiny was always a giver and when she looks into Clementine’s palms, her life, her mind, she can feel the indecision and the self-loathing and the sheer desperation that cling to Clementine like a second skin.

Destiny can see where Clementine will end up. No matter what she does, there is only this one outcome. Clementine has trouble with her faith and with her desires, but she will let herself be molded. Destiny holds her tight, kisses her neck, plunges her fingers into her while she writhes and strains to hear the voice of God.

Clementine thinks she is going to kill Peter. Destiny knows that she won’t.

When she was younger, her whole family lived with Nicolae. She and Peter and three others shared a room, and all her friends were called cousin. Her father taught her then, how to be a Gypsy—not Rom, but a charlatan fortune teller, seductress and magician. 

He sat across from her at a table, taught her how to see things beyond perception and how not to share them: “here is how you read the cards,” “here is how to tell what a person wants to hear,” “here is how you lose a client,” “here is how you make a client trust you,” “here is how you channel the dead,” “here is how you make people think you are channeling the dead,” “here is how you show a client exactly what they want to see,” “here is how you show a client what they need to see,” “here is how you make sure you always get paid.”

Clementine finds God in love and liquor. She has been taught all her life that the love she finds in the arms (and breasts and thighs and pussies) of women, and the voice of God that she hears right before she reaches completion is nothing but the devil’s lies, so she drinks.

In vino veritas.

God sounds, to Clementine, nothing like her father.

Destiny hasn’t heard God since she was a little girl (and God always sounded to her a little bit like Nicolae). The very first time she read Peter’s palm and instead of a sweaty little boy hand, she saw life stretch before her like a highway, complete with pitstops and other cars veering towards him, she heard a voice very much like Nicolae say, “Wonderful, Destiny.” Nicolae had been dead a year then.

Clementine cries out, bucks up, and Destiny holds her as she rides out her conversation with God. Destiny knows what will happen next. Clementine will throw a wad of cash on her table, storm out, and drink. Tonight, she will try to catch Peter, and she will threaten Roman, and one way or another (by Peter’s teeth or Roman’s rage or Olivia’s command) she will die. It could be tonight, it could last a couple of days.

Destiny throws back two shots of tequila when Clementine leaves—the good stuff, left over from Peter’s offering to her. This is her job—this has always been her job. Destiny knows better than to get emotionally involved.

She sleeps soundly that night.


End file.
